1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an apparatus and method for estimating railway vehicle masses.
2. Description of Related Art
This section provides background information related to the present disclosure, which is not necessarily prior art.
In one of the prior art seeking a railway vehicle mass in a train system, a Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication 2011-0124054 proposes a load measuring system and method for a railway vehicle, in which an entire mass of a railway vehicle is calculated by detecting a current state of a rail based on rail gradient information of vehicle position, rail curve information of a current position of railway vehicle and weather information.
However, the conventional prior art relates to performance of a mass measurement to an entire rail. That is, an entire railway vehicle is considered a point mass to measure an entire mass of the railway vehicle.
Generally, a train is comprised of a plurality of railway vehicles each being connected, such that the number of passengers loaded in each railway vehicle is different, or mass of each railway vehicle is different according to cargo loaded on each railway vehicle. Furthermore, in a case a train is controlled to be applied with same acceleration/deceleration to each railway vehicle during brake or propulsion of the train, it is difficult to control the train using information on an entire mass of the railway vehicle alone.
Still furthermore, the abovementioned prior art is to calculate a load of an entire railway vehicle by receiving information from a database stored in response to a current position of a railway vehicle. That is, the abovementioned prior art suffers from problems in that, in order to calculate a mass of a train, data on speed, many database is required, as acceleration and current position of a railway vehicle are required, and information on gradient angle and curvature of a railway at a relevant position are also required.
The abovementioned prior art makes database of information on rail gradient by being associated with position information data. A position of a running railway vehicle is corrected when passing a balise, where an error may be generated on the position information due to calculation of position by receiving information of a tachometer before the railway vehicle passes the balise, to disadvantageously result in generation of an error on measurement of railway vehicle mass due to errors on rail gradient associated with position information and curvature information.